It’s like a nightmare I’ve had many times before.
I know what happens next.
We are admitted to the paediatric ward, and hesitantly I take my seat beside his hospital bed, not knowing how long i’ll have to man my post this time.
I can tell from the room we’ve been given, and the whispers amongst hospital staff, that we aren’t going home today.
The beep of the saturation monitor is familiar.
But I’m not comforted by it.
There are things I don’t expect to ever come back into these rooms with us.
Things I’ve left behind on purpose.
Songs I don’t sing anymore.
”Skinnamarink” was one of them.
I sang it to him in the NICU.
Ever since I’ve hated it.
I can’t hear it without being taken straight back to those first days – those early versions of him fighting for life.
I turn it off when it comes on.
I don’t sing it to my other children, even when they ask.
Because some things don’t just remind you of a moment.
They take you back there.
Soli knows the drill too.
He opens his mouth before being asked.
Sticks out his finger to be pricked.
Offers his urine sample to the nurse like he’s been given a running order prior to arrival.
He has done this before.
Too many times.
They begin inserting the cannula into his arm and, like clockwork, my stomach turns to knots.
Essential for drawing blood and administering fluids and medications, for me it represents something else entirely.
And it begins
The moment where you realise you can’t simply take him and leave of your own free will anymore.
He is now connected to the place.
And so are you.
I hold his four-year-old body in my arms, remembering his four-month-old body going through the same motions.
The same small voice whispers Mumma weakly.
The same innocent face unable to hide it’s sadness.
But I’m not the same.
I’ve hardened.
I feel rigid – full of fight, ready for what I know is coming.
Deep down, I’m a puddle of emotions, not even completely whole.
But that part remains buried this time.
The children’s hospital will do that to a mother.
I need to go home to my family now. To my baby brother
That’s his answer to every question the medical staff ask him. It’s like a chant he repeats over and over again.
And I say,
I know. I hear you. We’ll go home soon
But I know that’s not true.
It’s a promise I can’t keep.
Later, when the room is quieter and the weight of it all settles in again, he can’t settle.
Nothing works.
Not comfort.
Not distraction.
Not reassurance.
At some point, words stop working.
They circle the room but don’t land anywhere soft enough to hold what’s happening.
He is tired. I am tired. And there is nothing left to say that would make this easier for either of us.
I can feel both of us slipping.
And then I find myself doing the one thing I never expected.
I start to sing.
Skinnamarink a- dink a -dink, skinnamarink a- doo…
It comes out softly at first.
Almost hesitantly.
Under my breath, like I’m testing whether I can still access that part of myself.
The same song I once swore I would never sing again.
The same song I associated with wires, alarms, fear, and the darkest days of our lives.
But here, in this room, it changes shape.
I’m not sure if I’m singing to him or to myself.
Maybe both.
And slowly, his body settles into mine.
My voice steadies.
It’s softer than I feel and Soli doesn’t ask me to stop.
The room doesn’t change, but something inside it shifts – just slightly – enough for us to breathe in the same rhythm for a moment.
And I stay there, holding both of us in that small, fragile space singing softly.
Skinnamarink a- dink a -dink, skinnamarink a- doo…
